I am entering today knowing it is going to be a better day. I do this with great confidence because they don't get any worse than yesterday.

The plant has been on a horrible run. Fire after fire, choke-up after choke-up.

And then there are employees.

The last two nights the plant has processed three hundred bales one night and a whopping one hundred sixty-five the next. Late yesterday, the GM, the burr contractor and myself were all in the office at the scale counter when the yard man came in asking, "Is that smoke or dust billowing from the plant?" The GM assured him is was dust. I was not so sure because it behaved like smoke. The burr contractor wasn't sure either so he went around back to check on his charges.

Turns out it was smoke. I walked across the road and met the burr contractor and when we opened the door to the plant we were greeted with a wall of smoke. We ventured in to the the next door and couldn't see anything so we turned back and exited. Without a doubt, that was the worst fire I have seen in all the years I have been here. I don't know how Frank and his boys did it but they stayed in there fighting it until they had it out, some three hours later. The fires did recur later in the night.

Right in the middle of this, shift change was suppose to occur. I had seen Jose C. arrive at the compound traveling at a high rate of speed. He went to his trailer before coming to his station. When he began to drive to his station he began burning rubber and doing donuts in the parking area. I started for where he was located when he barreled out and went to the other end. I arrived back there and he did the same thing spinning wildly around before driving through the ditch and on to the county road, going back to the other end.

About this time the burr contractor came to me telling me Jose had almost hit some of the burr men who were working on a truck and that I needed to get that man situated. I went to the other end of the compound and caught up with Jose. He was sitting in his car, when I approached him and asked if we have a problem. "No", he responded, "I gotte tamales" and he began to laugh. I then asked him if he was drinking and he told me yes, he had been drinking in the afternoon but not in the night. I told him had obviously consumed enough in the afternoon because he was very drunk and it wasn't far into the night. I told him he was not going to work in that condition and that he needed to go to his trailer, get something to eat and sleep it off. We would try it again tomorrow night. He got out of the car and began cursing and threatening me, telling me he was going to work because he wanted the hours and the pay. When I told him again that wasn't going to happen, he became even more belligerent. I finally told him he could go sleep it off and report Thursday night and still have a job or he could continue and lose his job. He told me, give him his check, he didn't want to work for me any more.

Of course by now, I didn't want him as an employee. I began to make my way to my trailer to figure his time and prepare his pay information for Krl. On the bottom of the sheet I put that he was dismissed for reporting to work drunk and endangering other workers. Krl wrote his check slipped it and his settlement into an envelope and I exited my trailer. About this time Mark, the constable and a good friend of mine drove up. The GM had summoned him. I filled Mark in on what was going on this time and that earlier in the year this employee and pulled a gun on another employee during an altercation. I didn't want Mark walking into a situation thinking it was just a mean drunk and ending up getting hurt. Jose responded to the lawman very well, especially after backup arrived, but before long he began getting irate again. Before it was all over, they impounded Jose's car, he had stolen tags, no insurance and the title hadn't been transferred from his buying it in 2005. They gave him a choice of laying it out in one of the empty bunkhouses or spending the night at the Glasscock Hilton as a guest of the county. He chose the bunkhouse as was told if he left a limited area he would be arrested. At two-thirty this morning they checked on him and he was there sleeping, but at four thirty he was gone. No one is quite sure of where or how he left but he is gone and he left all his belonging in the company travel trailer.

I was told this morning Jose was wanting to go home early for Christmas and thought if I fired him he could draw unemployment benefits. Of course with his daredevil car driving and verbal threats that is out the window.

I was really surprised how when Jose got really threatening a number of people appeared. Later they told me they were there just in case Jose got physical. On two occasions I had people tell me to be really careful dealing with him, and I appreciated their concern as well.

Jose is a pretty good sized man and everyone knows he has a crazy streak that when fuel by alcohol, never ends on a good note.

Oh well, that just saved the company another incentive bonus. That's two this week.

I had a call, actually two calls, telling me that Drew made his debut about 8:22 this morning. Reports are that he is a little cherub, weighing in at 7 lbs. thirteen ounces, measuring twenty and a half inches in length. Has a full head of black hair and large eyes. Let the record also show, he was born naked!

Well, I have extra duties today. The GM, the plant "super", and Roy the yardman have all gone to Del Rio for Ricardo's funeral. Greg, the burr contractor is leaving this afternoon to go home to eat birthday cake with his son who turns two today. So I have lots to look out for.

Have a day!

FATHER, thank YOU for new days with new beginnings. Thank YOU that no one was hurt in last nights fire or altercations. Thank YOU for for grandson Drew and grand niece Kennedy Faith, bless them and keep them.